145. Thus, for instance, in the architecture which Niccola was occupied
upon, when a boy, under his Byzantine master. Here is the door of the
Baptistery at Pisa, again by Mr. Severn delightfully enlarged for us
from a photograph. [1] The general idea of it is a square-headed
opening in a solid wall, faced by an arch carried on shafts. And the
ornament does indeed follow this construction so that the eye catches
it with ease,--but under what arbitrary conditions! In the square door,
certainly the side-posts of it are as important members as the lintel
they carry; but the lintel is carved elaborately, and the side-posts
left blank. Of the facing arch and shaft, it would be similarly
difficult to say whether the sustaining vertical, or sustained curve,
were the more important member of the construction; but the decorator
now reverses the distribution of his care, adorns the vertical member
with passionate elaboration, and runs a narrow band, of comparatively
uninteresting work, round the arch. Between this outer shaft and inner
door is a square pilaster, of which the architect carves one side, and
lets the other alone. It is followed by a smaller shaft and arch, in
which he reverses his treatment of the outer order by cutting the shaft
delicately and the arch deeply.
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